Naruto: Melody of the Shinobi
by Arcane Azmadi
Summary: With time on their hands and growing-up to do, Naruto, Sakura, Keiji and their friends manage to get themselves into a lot of different adventures. The world has a lot to offer to a young shinobi. A companion series to Naruto: the Secret Songs of the Ninja made up of single-chapter stories taking place during the time skip between chapters 12 and 13 (see my profile).


NARUTO: MELODY OF THE SHINOBI.

 **Disclaimer:** Do we need to go through this whole "I do not own Naruto" rigmarole again? No, I think we do not.

 **Note:** As the story description said, this fic is a spin-off of my main fanfic, **Naruto: the Secret Songs of the Ninja**. It takes place during the timeskip between chapters 12 and 13, to recount minor events in the characters' lives, and will be generally more light-hearted in tone and content. Do not read it if you have not read Secret Songs up to the end of chapter 12. Well... you can if you really want to, I can't stop you, but there won't be much point and you won't understand a lot of stuff.

################

Chapter 1: Melody of the Strings.

"Man, that was great fun!" Naruto enthused as he and Hinata shuffled awkwardly through the packed crowd. "Did you enjoy that, Hinata?"

His girlfriend smiled. "Oh I loved it, Naruto-kun! Thank you for taking me."

As they made it through the door of the theatre and the crowd began to space out, Naruto rubbed the back of his head and blushed. "Eheh... I'm glad you liked it, Hinata. Actually, I need to thank Keiji for suggesting it to me. He has some great ideas sometimes." It was depressing how rarely both he and Hinata had a full day of time off from missions at the same time, so on this precious opportunity to go on a date with his girlfriend Naruto had taken her to the kabuki theatre at Sumigawa to see a performance of the play _'Seven Scrolls of the Mountain God'._ He'd been uncertain whether it would be the kind of thing she'd like, but it was certainly a better option than the other show on offer, _'Love Suicide at Kawanakajima',_ which was just about the _worst_ thing he could think of to take his girlfriend to for a date. Fortunately the performance had been a blast.

The two teenagers walked down the busy street, hand-in-hand. They had the rest of the day off before they had to return to the Fortress of the Senju and Naruto was still planning to take Hinata to dinner. Team 7 had been fortunate enough to score a number of lucrative missions since the surviving shinobi of Konoha had resumed providing ninja service to the Land of Fire, so his wallet was about the fullest it had ever been. In fact, because their forces were so diminished, it was rare for them to have ninja to spare for any missions that _weren't_ lucrative- Naruto been on four B-ranked missions already and even some of the C-ranks his team had taken on might normally have been assigned to a more-experienced genin team had there been any available.

The upshot of all this extra work and the danger that accompanied it was that he had more than enough money to treat his girlfriend for the day, and then some.

"What was your favourite part of the play, Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked him.

The blond boy thought for a moment. "Huh. The guy playing the Mountain God was really awesome. I _loved_ that dance of rage he did when he realised Akasato had stolen the seventh scroll." Releasing Hinata's hand, he struck a series of dramatic kabuki poses, chanting the fast-paced shamisen music from the scene acapella, uncaring of the funny looks her got from passers-by. "Chang chacha chang-chang-ching diddle cha-cha chang! _Oi-ya!_ Oh man, that was so cool!" he gushed. "I'd love to see it again."

Hinata giggled. "It was certainly an impressive performance," she agreed, smiling.

"Wasn't it?" Naruto nodded enthusiastically. "Y'know, when I was a kid, other than a shinobi, I also wanted to be a kabuki dancer. You think I'd be able to do it?" He thrust his palm out dramatically and rolled his head around. _"Oi-ya-SA!"_

This time Hinata had to cover her mouth with her hand. Once she had herself under control again, she nodded good-naturedly. "Eheh, I'm sure you could if you really wanted to, Naruto-kun," she said. "But it'd be hard for you to be a shinobi if you were a world-famous actor. What if an important mission coincided with a performance?"

"Oh, yeah," Naruto conceded, crestfallen. "That's too bad." Looking around them as they walked down the street, suddenly something caught his eye and he brightened up. "Hey, hold on," he said excitedly. "I've got an idea!"

Mystified, Hinata watched as her boyfriend skipped across to the opposite side of the road to study the window display of one the countless shops that lined either side. Following him, her confusion only grew when she beheld what he was looking at- a row of musical instruments. "Naruto-kun, what...?" she began hesitantly.

He turned back to her, reckless enthusiasm shining in his eyes. "I'm gonna buy a shamisen!"

oooOOOooo

"Happy birthday, Naruto!"

Naruto's face glowed with happiness as he looked around at all the people who'd come to this little party. Keiji, Kakashi, Iruka, Jiraiya, Might Guy, Rock Lee, Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon had all managed to squeeze into the tiny restaurant Teuchi had managed to open in a corner of the Fortress, with Jiraiya assuring him that Tsunade would at least drop around later (although unfortunately Tenten was rostered for lookout duty that evening). Hinata sitting on his right blushed as she pressed a shy kiss to his cheek, and Sakura to his left gave him a quick but heartfelt hug. Jiraiya chuckled. "You're in an enviable position, boy, a flower in each hand."

Hinata blushed even redder and Sakura gave the dirty old man a cross look, but Naruto just grinned as everyone else laughed. The young genin struggled to recall a time he'd been this happy. All of his previous birthdays had been spent either alone, or at best Iruka had taken him to Ichiraku where Teuchi and Ayame at least would be happy to see him. This was the first time so many people had gathered to wish him well and he felt like the joy was about to burst out of his ears.

"So, before we eat," Jiraiya proclaimed, "does anyone have any presents to give to the birthday boy?" The old man was not-very-surreptitiously holding a small, rectangular package which Naruto was willing to bet money was one of his dirty books, but he stood back to let someone else go first.

Hinata looked like she was about to say something when Kakashi unexpectedly leaned over Naruto's shoulder and placed an ornate kunai on the table in front of him. The weapon's handle was carved with an elaborate seal pattern that Naruto had never seen before. "Happy birthday, Naruto," his teacher said, smiling through his mask. "This is something my own sensei gave me for my birthday once. When you throw it, the seal will broadcast a signal directly to me to let me know. Use it when you need my help and I'll come as soon as I can."

Naruto picked up the weapon and studied it curiously. "Wow, thanks Kakashi-sensei," he said. "You said the Fourth Hokage made one of these for you?"

Kakashi nodded. "It saved my life once."

"Wow," the boy repeated, his eyes widening in awe. "I'll make sure I keep it with me at all times."

He felt someone tapping him on his left shoulder and looked round to see Sakura holding a small package wrapped in brightly-coloured paper out to him. "Here you go, Naruto," she said, smiling. Intrigued, he put the kunai down on the counter, took the present from her and tore open the wrapping. Inside was what appeared to be a cloth bag embroidered with flowers and stuffed with something soft that gave off an interesting odour. There didn't seem to be an opening anywhere on it and he looked at his teammmate questioningly. "It's a scent pillow," Sakura explained. "Ino told me how to make it. It's full of potpurri and you're supposed to put under your pillow at night to help you sleep better."

He held the gift up to his face and deeply inhaled the delightful scent of the dried flowers. So close to his nose it was so strong it almost made him light-headed, but it was lovely all the same, and he smiled dizzily. "Oh wow, that's amazing. Thank you, Sakura-chan!" The cherry-haired girl returned the smile and gave him another quick hug, blushing faintly.

This time he felt something tug gently on his right sleeve. Hinata was shyly holding out a single folded sheet of paper to him, a rather nervous expression on her face. Perplexed, he took the sheet and unfolded it, wondering what was bothering his girlfriend. Was she worried he wouldn't like what she'd gotten for him?

His brow furrowed with confusion as he read the contents of the paper. It seemed to be some sort of receipt, with a list of dates on it. "Um... I hope you don't mind, Naruto-kun, but... I thought for a long time about what you might find useful and, um, then I tried to think about something other than, um, ninja things, and well..." She fidgeted for a second. "...um, I found you a shamisen tutor."

Naruto stared at her, nonplussed, then looked down at the paper again. Sure enough, there was a name and address there: _Koushakuji Tokikawa,_ with an address somewhere in Otafuku Gai. "Um, I asked around a bit until I found a shamisen instructor living somewhere within a day of the Fortress," Hinata continued awkwardly, "and paid him for three months of lessons in advance."

"That she did, boy," Jiraiya boomed, "and she even came to me to arrange for you to get enough days off to meet the scheduled lesson times." The big man chuckled. "As long as no emergency missions come up, you should have enough time to learn to master that instrument of yours."

Worried she'd inadvertently insulted him, Hinata struggled to meet his eyes. "Um, is that... OK, Naruto-kun?"

In response, Naruto put the paper down next to his other gifts, placed his hands on Hinata's cheeks and kissed her on the mouth.

Hinata's face went as red as a tomato and a round of cheers and whistles rose from Naruto's assembled friends. "You go, niichan!" Konohamaru yelled excitedly.

He broke the kiss, smiling as Hinata swayed dizzily, only for a pair of lanky arms to wrap excitedly around both of their shoulders. "Hinata-san, thank you _so much!"_ Keiji yelled in delight, squeezing both Naruto and his girlfriend. "This was _such_ a great idea! I didn't know how much more I could stand of Naruto-kun's 'practice'!"

Naruto blushed and rolled his eyes, but he didn't really have grounds to argue with his ecstatic friend. He had no delusions about his current musical ability- or lack thereof. He and Keiji had been roommates ever since they'd moved out of the barracks into the new apartments carved into the internal wall of the caldera that formed the Hidden Fortress of the Senju. While they generally got along well, the one sticking point between them had been his shamisen. Without anyone to teach him how to play the instrument he'd bought several weeks ago, he hadn't been able to produce anything more melodic than some tuneless plonking. He'd persevered regardless, but while Keiji had tolerated the noise with an admirable amount of restraint, last week he'd threatened to make Naruto _eat_ the instrument if he didn't knock it off.

Looking across at Hinata as his roommate enthusiastically hugged them both, he managed a smile. "Thanks, Hinata. You couldn't have gotten me anything better."

The smile she returned was a precious gift in its own right.

oooOOOooo

Naruto stopped in front of the doorway and checked the address written on the slip of paper in his hand again. This was the place, alright- the nameplate beside the door of the old-fashioned house read 'Koushakuji'. He looked up and down the street nervously. He felt naked without his Konoha protector on, but Jiraiya had insisted that, when they were out of the Fortress and on their own for private reasons, their shinobi needed to go incognito for their own protection. Right now, he wasn't Uzumaki Naruto, ninja genin, he was just Uzumaki Naruto, aspiring shamisen student.

Hesitantly he pushed the incongruously-modern button under the nameplate and heard a bell chime on the other side. Hefting the shamisen in its bag up onto his shoulder again as it started to slip down his arm, he settled down to wait for an answer.

He didn't have to wait for long. Less than a minute had passed before he heard the sound of shuffling feet inside, then the paper-screened door rattled aside. Naruto found himself looking at a wrinkled and alarmingly-thin old man who looked to be about the same age as the Third Hokage had been. "Koushakuji Tokikawa-san?" he ventured.

"That depends," snapped the old man brusquely. "If you're Uzumaki Naruto, then it's Koushakuji _-sensei_ to you.

Naruto blinked, somewhat disconcerted. "Um, Koushakuji-sensei, then. I'm Uzumaki Naruto."

"Obviously," his new teacher observed acidly. "Well, come inside then." Turning away without another word, he stumped down the wood-panelled hallway deeper into the house. Naruto stared after him for a second then shook his head and, stopping only to take his sandals off and leave them by the door, hurried after his new teacher.

The old man slid open a _shoji_ screen door and stepped through into a tatami-floored room which opened out on the other side into a small garden, settling onto a _zabuton_ cushion in a flawless seiza position. An expensive-looking shamisen was already laid out in front of the cushion, ready for use. Naruto carefully laid the bag containing his own instrument down beside the second cushion that had been placed opposite and took a seat on it with his legs crossed. Instantly the music teacher snapped at him again, so sharply that he jumped. _"Seiza,_ boy, _seiza!_ Don't you even know how to sit? You can't play a shamisen like that!" Hastily Naruto rearranged his legs to fold them under him, sitting on his own heels and ignoring the twinges of pain from his knees and ankles. "If you hope to be any good at the shamisen, you're going to have to learn to sit like that for hours at a time," Koushakuji-sensei continued, "so you'd better get used to it." Naruto groaned internally at the thought but didn't say anything. "Now get your instrument out."

Picking up the bag containing his precious shamisen, Naruto unwrapped the string tied around the neck of the instrument and tugged the cloth off. While he was very fond of his instrument (despite his inability to properly play it), he knew it was a cheap one, especially compared to the luxurious-looking instrument in front of his instructor. The tuning pegs were only made of imitation ivory, the skin over the squareish wooden body was made of tanned dog skin rather than the traditional cat skin, the metal core in the neck was almost certainly not made of real gold, and the silk strings were already becoming frayed from use. Regardless, it was his and he liked it.

"The girl said that this was the first lesson you've ever had," Koushakuji-sensei said. "I don't imagine you even know how to tune your instrument, do you?"

The thinly-veiled contempt was starting to get on Naruto's nerves. "Of course I know how to tune it!" he snapped.

"Oh do you?" the old man challenged him. "Tune it to _honchoushi_ then, and we can get started."

Naruto stared at his teacher like he'd just ordered Naruto to build him a new house.

"I'm not hearing any tuning, boy."

Face burning with angry embarrassment, Naruto muttered "OK, I don't know how to tune it. Sorry."

The teacher sighed melodramatically and extended a bony hand. "Give it here, then. And pay attention."

Glumly, Naruto handed his instrument across the gap between them. The lesson was scheduled to go for two hours this week. It was going to be a long two hours.

oooOOOooo

Kyoshun Keiji looked up expectantly as the door to the apartment clicked open and Uzumaki Naruto staggered in. "Welcome back, Naruto-kun," he greeted his friend, putting the shuriken he'd just finished sharpening on top of a neat stack, alongside the rest on the tabletop. "How was your first music lesson?"

Unslinging his instrument bag from his shoulder, the other boy staggered over to his futon next to the room's window, dropped the instrument on top of the mattress, then collapsed face-down next to it with a groan.

"That good, huh?" Keiji observed.

Naruto painfully turned his head to look at his friend. "He spent the first half-hour just teaching me how to _hold_ the shamisen and bachi before he'd even let me play a note. Then he spent another half an hour just making me play empty notes on the strings to make sure my hand was moving the right way. My shamisen would slip out of tune every few minutes, so I had to keep retuning it. Then we couldn't even get half-way down the first page of _'Matsu no Midori'_ without him criticising me every step of the way. And by the time we were done, I'd been sitting in seiza so long that my legs were paralyzed by pins and needles."

Keiji nodded sympathetically. "So you're learning 'The Green of the Pines', huh? What's a bachi?" he asked offhandedly

"You know, the fishtail-shaped wooden thingy you use to strum the strings," Naruto answered tiredly. "I was holding it wrong all along. I've already got a blister on my knuckle from where it rubs against it when I strum."

"I see," his friend said, picking up another shuriken. "You're not regretting this already, are you? Hinata-san would be so disappointed."

Naruto shoved himself upright on the futon and glared up at Keiji belligerently. "No way! I'm not going to give up that easily! I decided I'm going to master the shamisen and I absolutely will!" He grabbed his instrument and began to loosen the strings of its carry bag. "In fact, I'm going to practice some more right now! I'll show that grouchy old man the next time I see him!"

The shuriken slipped from Keiji's fingers and bounced across the tabletop as he stared at Naruto in disbelief. Then he clapped one hand over his face and groaned.

oooOOOooo

Lesson after lesson, Naruto steadily improved. Although his downtime between missions was limited, whenever he had fifteen minutes of spare time in between his shinobi training he would practice voraciously, although Keiji would often force him to leave their shared apartment and go play out on the grounds of the Fortress instead. He still had to admit that Naruto was sounding a lot better, though. The blond boy may not have had a natural ear for music, but his training in forming ninjutsu seals had made his fingers agile and precise enough to handle the rapid position shifts up and down the neck of his instrument, and Kakashi surmised that, inversely, the effort he put into memorising music scores would also help him improve his memory for codes and ciphers, which had always been a weakness of his.

No force in the world, however, would do anything to improve Naruto's singing voice.

"Why do I even have to learn to sing anyway?" he groused, half-way through a rendition of _Suehirogari._ "I'm a shamisen-player. There are separate singers whose job it is to sing during performances."

"You can't understand how the shamisen music accompanies the vocals, particularly the timing, unless you know how the vocalist's part goes," Koushakuji-sensei snapped, his bachi hovering above the strings."It doesn't matter that you sound like a tanuki being tortured to death." The old shamisen master himself had a surprisingly tuneful baritone, which he normally used to provide the vocal accompaniment while he and Naruto played through the songs together on their instruments. "Now stop arguing and sing!"

This was far from the only thing master and student disagreed about. "I don't get why I need to shift my hand all the way up to third position on the second string to reach that note, and then back down again for the very next note, when I could just play it on the third string instead without even needing to stretch," he complained after three weeks. "It sounds exactly the same either way and it's a lot easier!"

"It _doesn't_ sound the same!" his teacher upbraided him crossly. "It's a totally different sound. And this is the way it's meant to be played. No arguments!"

"How am I supposed to retune my shamisen from _honchoushi_ to _sansagari_ and back again in the middle of the piece without dropping a note?" Naruto complained during the first key shift of _Kishi no Yanagi._ "If we need to change keys that much, it'd be easier to keep an entire second instrument ready to use and just swap them over instead!"

"No, you only do that when one of your strings snaps in the middle of an important performance and you wouldn't have time to change it mid-piece," the old man corrected him absently. "Now stop whining and try harder. And lift your wrist higher when you strum, I've showed you a hundred times. Full, round movements. You're wielding a bachi, not a kunai, boy!"

By the end of the second of the three months of lessons Hinata had gifted him, Naruto was coming home fuming after every session. One night as he knelt on his futon, striking out the harsh chords of _Kuramayama_ like he had a personal vendetta against the mountain-dwelling crow demon of the title, Keiji decided to ask him about it. "Um, Naruto-kun?" he started delicately. His roommate's bachi froze in midair and he looked questioningly at Keiji. "I hate to ask when you're working this hard, but you never seem to be in a good mood when you come back from your lessons. This might be a dumb question, but... are you not really enjoying them?"

"The lessons suck!" Naruto snarled suddenly, making Keiji jump. "That crappy old man is _never_ happy with _anything_ I do! Any time I do anything even the _tiniest_ bit different from 'the way it's meant to be played' he forces me to do it again and again until I've done it _exactly_ as he wants me to!"

Keiji nodded sympathetically. Traditional arts like _nagauta_ shamisen demanded discipline as strict as any martial art and Naruto had never been suited to that. For someone as accustomed to getting by on improvisation and creativity as Naruto, this kind of stringent discipline must be _torture._ "So do you ever wish Hinata-san had given you a different present?"

His friend stared at him for a second, then sighed. "Actually, no I don't. I mean, yeah, the _lessons_ suck, and that old man is a pain in my ass. But I can do _this_ now." His left hand skipped up and down the neck of his shamisen as his right strummed out a series of melodic chords, then he smiled. "And yeah, I really enjoy being able to play, and I like the music." He blushed a little. "Also... there's one thing I really want to do."

"What's that?" Keiji asked.

Naruto scratched the back of his head with one of the pointy corners of his bachi and blushed a little more. "Well... I was hoping to have at least one piece pretty much perfect by, y'know... by Hinata's birthday." His girlfriend was only about two months younger than he was, placing her birthday only a week and a half from now. "Something simple like _Matsu no Midori_ or _Suehirogari_ or something. I was, y'know, hoping to... play it... for her..." His voice trailed off into a mutter and he blushed even redder as he bent over his instrument again, picking out single notes with his bachi.

Keiji smiled. "That'd be a great idea, Naruto-kun. I'm sure she'd love that. So, you're going to stick with your lessons for now?"

"Of course I am! I told you I'd master this instrument, and no grouchy old man is going to discourage me! I just need get this bit right by next week..." He struck out four chords, shifted his hand up the neck and winced as he hit a bum note. "Damn!" He stopped for a second to adjust the tuning of the third string. "Oh yeah, I'm gonna be late back next week," he mentioned offhandedly as he tightened the peg. "The old man is busy that day, so he said I had to either push the lesson time back to the evening or else cancel it."

His roommate nodded and silently wished him luck. Naruto's playing really _was_ getting a lot better. Whether ninjutsu or music, he'd never back down from a challenge.

oooOOOooo

In a tiny room in a cheap inn on an Otafuku Gai backstreet, a nondescript figure slipped through the door and took a seat at the small table. The other two men already seated there looked up expectantly. "Well?" demanded the larger of the two.

"I'm certain of it now," the newcomer replied. "It was definitely him. No mistaking it."

The second man with a scar over each eye like a second pair of eyebrows sniggered. "We finally found him."

"Should we report back now?" the scout said. "Wait for backup?"

"No," rumbled the leader. "We can take him ourselves if he's not expecting us. I don't want to hang around in this town any longer than necessary."

"So what's the plan?" asked the second man.

The big man thought for a second. "We'll take him tomorrow night." He smiled inside his mask. "Orochimaru-sama will be pleased."

oooOOOooo

Naruto rang the doorbell of his teacher's house, glancing up at the sky in concern. The sun was already almost out of sight below the horizon. By the time the two-hour lesson was over it'd be pitch black, and he'd have to rush if he wanted to make it back to the Fortress before midnight.

From inside the house he heard the crotchety voice of his tutor shout "Just come in already, boy! I want to get this over with!"

Sighing hopelessly, Naruto opened the door and entered the house, leaving his sandals in their usual place. Koushakuji-sensei was already sitting in seiza position in his usual place on the _zabuton_ when Naruto came into the practice room, tuning his shamisen. The _shoji_ screens leading out to the garden had already been closed to keep the cool of the evening air out. "Hurry up, boy," he snapped impatiently. "I want you to be able to play _Kuramayama_ all the way through by the end of today's lesson."

Scowling, Naruto took his place on the opposite cushion and hastily began to prepare his own instrument. "Hey, Sensei?" he asked as he tightened the pegs, pulling the silken strings taut and lightly strumming them as he listened to the pitch rise. "Could we go over _Suehirogari_ again today as well? I want to make sure I have it perfect by next week for-" He bit his tongue, not particularly wanting to tell the unpleasant old man about his secret plan for Hinata's birthday.

To his surprise, the old man cackled dryly. "Wanting to perform for your little girlfriend, huh? Think you're hot stuff already? Alright, if you really want to, we can go over it after we finish _Kuramayama."_ Naruto flushed with frustration but managed hold his temper. At least he was getting what he wanted.

Over an hour into the lesson, the two of them finally strummed the last notes of the song. As Koushakuji-sensei's deep voice faded away, Naruto let our a deep breath. _Kuramayama_ , a lively song about a young warrior sparring with a mountain tengu, had been the hardest song he'd learned yet and had taken three weeks of lessons and practicing whenever he had a spare minute just for him to be able to get from the first note to the last. He felt a surge of satisfaction at completing another step in his mastery of the shamisen. It was moments like this that made putting up with all his teacher's criticism and nastiness worthwhile.

Koushakuji-sensei gave his student one of his very rare looks of approval. "Alright boy, if you want to see how good you are at _Suehirogari_ then I want you to try and play it through without the score this time." His hand went to the head of his shamisen to adjust the tuning to the right setting for the new piece- and stopped, hand hovering in midair. "Oh damn," he sighed unexpectedly.

Naruto only had time to give the old man a quizzical look before the _shoji_ leading out into the garden exploded inwards. Desperately ducking under splinters of flying wood and torn paper, Naruto looked up, combat instincts firing, to see three strange men standing around him and his teacher, two of them brandishing kunai, the third a thick-bladed, machete-like sword. His eyes widened at the sight of the musical note on their forehead protectors. "Sound-nin?" he gasped, taken completely off-guard. "How did they know I was here?! Sensei, get down! I-"

"Shut up, kid," the largest of the three men commanded offhandedly. Naruto actually shut up out of sheer astonishment. None of the three interlopers was even looking at him. Instead, all of them had their eyes fixed on his teacher, who still hadn't moved a muscle since their dynamic entry. "We've finally found you, Otoshiki Koushino!"

Naruto's jaw dropped and he stared from the three Sound-nin to his elderly shamisen tutor. The old man still hadn't moved, but at the Sound shinobi's words he smirked. "So it's you, Torasuke. Then if my memory serves me correctly, these two with you must be... Nandaro and Ryouki, yes?" The other two shinobi exchanged glances. "I would have expected my stupid granddaughter to be the one to find me first, but after all this time it ends up being second-rate lapdogs like you three idiots." He absently resumed tuning his shamisen as he spoke, his bachi lightly brushing the string so he could hear the pitch shift.

The leader pointed his sword at Koushakuji-sensei's -or would that be Otoshiki Koushino's?- head, the blunt tip of the weapon hovering only a few inches from the old man's skull. "As one of Orochimaru-sama's Four Gate Guardians, Tayuya-sama has better things to do than chase down traitors. And we'll see who the small fry is when we bring you back to Oto tied up in a sack! Orochimaru-sama has a _lot_ he wants to ask you." The other two crowded in closer around him, weapons raised.

Getting a hold of himself, Naruto jumped to his feet. He had no idea what was going on and he wasn't carrying any weapons, but there was no way he could allow these three to kidnap his teacher, whoever he was. The old man's voice cracked like a whip. "Sit down, boy, put your shamisen away, and stay out of the way. This is none of your business." Baffled, Naruto hesitated. The three enemy ninjas still hadn't even bothered keeping an eye on him, apparently thinking him just an ordinary teenager, but Koushakuji-sensi (or Otoshiki-sensei or whoever he was) seemed completely unbothered by the fact that all of them had him at blade-point. He wasn't the kind of person to back down from a fight, but his teacher's tone brooked no argument. "And there are two things you young whelps have gotten wrong," the teacher added.

The smallest of the three Oto-nin scoffed. "Oh, and what would those be, old man?"

"Well firstly, Ryouki, I didn't 'betray' Otogakure," the old man said sardonically. "I was already retired when that worm Orochimaru muscled his way in, took over and you weaklings bowed down to him. Since I didn't like the idea of living under his vile rule and having my techniques turned to his twisted purposes, I simply left." He finished adjusting his instrument and nodded with satisfaction. "And secondly-" He interrupted himself. "Boy, I said put your shamisen _away,_ or at least loosen the strings if you don't want to get hurt." The three intruders looked back at Naruto for the first time, bewilderment matching Naruto's own on their faces. "Secondly, you seem to have forgotten _why_ your master cares about getting an old man like me back so much!"

The bachi slashed across the strings, striking a harsh, discordant chord that Naruto hadn't even imagined a shamisen could make. With a vicious _spang_ of sundered metal the blade of Torasuke's machete snapped off and shot up past the startled man's face, burying itself in the wooden ceiling. Before any of his assailants could react, Koushakuji-sensei had struck out another two chords and Nandaro and Ryouki reeled backwards, blood spurting from gashes that had laid open their foreheads to the bone. Their leader snarled and tried to slash at the old man with the jagged edge of his broken weapon, but the shamisen teacher's fingers jumped up the neck of his instrument and a slightly higher-pitched chord slashed his arm open from his wrist to his elbow, making him reflexively drop the ruined machete to the tatami with a howl of pain.

At Naruto's feet, the strings of his own shamisen whined as they resonated with the vicious notes. Naruto yelped in surprise and pain as an errant sonic attack misfired from his instrument and slashed across his bare foot, drawing blood. Frantically he dropped to his knees and clasped his hands around the neck of the shamisen, stilling the humming strings as the Oto-nin desperately tried to recover.

Naruto's teacher was relentless, however. His bachi rapidly slammed across the strings in a deadly discordant solo that slashed at his enemies like a tornado of invisible blades, disregarding the blood that sprayed across him. Ryouki staggered back and slumped to the tatami in a bloodstained heap, and the other two stumbled out through the shattered screen door into the house's garden. The razor-edged music chased after them and Nandaro, blood in his eyes, stumbled and tripped over a rock at the edge of the small ornamental pond, plunging face-down into it and lying still, staining the waters red.

Naruto stayed low, holding his humming shamisen strings still and watching in shocked amazement as his teacher devastated his enemies. Torasuke managed to duck into cover behind the sakura tree at the end of the garden as the vicious notes struck chips of bark off the trunk. Leaning around the tree, he desperately slung a trio of shuriken towards his opponent. Naruto shouted a warning, but his teacher was way ahead of him and a trio of clashing notes picked the weapons out of the air one after the other.

In the split second relief his attack had bought, the last Sound-nin shouted _"Katon: Great Fireball jutsu!"_ and raised his hand to his mouth. A huge billow of flame erupted from his lips, but the instant the first word of the technique's name had escaped his mouth Koushakuji-sensei had already reacted. His left hand flew up to the tuning pegs and twisted them with unerring precision, then as the scorching wave bore down on him and his house, he struck a single deep, sonorous note that made Naruto's teeth rattle and stomach churn. The fireball stopped in midair as if it had struck an invisible wall, then reversed direction, blowing back towards Torasuke.

The Oto-nin stared in paralyzed horror as his own fire technique roared towards him. At the last second he tried to take cover behind the cherry tree again, but the inferno washed over him, engulfing tree and man in flames, setting both alight like torches. Torasuke staggered out from behind the blackened trunk as burning leaves fell around him like a swarm of fireflies, screaming in shocked agony, but Naruto's teacher had already retuned his instrument and a single cutting chord put him out of his misery.

Silence fell over the scene, aside from the crackling of the burning sakura tree. Naruto goggled at the carnage in front of him as his instructor sighed and untuned his shamisen again, laying it down beside him and stretching his arms. "Uh..." he started, scrambling to get his thoughts in order. "Um... Sensei?"

Koushakuji-sensei looked at him. The old man suddenly looked even older than usual and very tired. "So... I guess that's all there is to it, boy."

"You're... a ninja?" Naruto managed. "A Sound ninja?"

 _"Former_ Sound ninja," his teacher corrected him. "Like I said, I was already retired, but when Orochimaru took over the village a few years back and tried to 'un-retire' me, I decided to make myself scarce and went into hiding here." He peered at Naruto curiously. "Have you had a run-in with that snake yourself, boy? I heard about him destroying your village earlier this year."

Naruto blinked. "Wait. You... you know I'm a ninja? But... I never said-"

"I'm an ex- _jounin,_ boy," the renegade Oto-nin interrupted him sounding somewhat cross. "You think I wouldn't notice something like that? I could tell you were a ninja from the first time I saw you."

Naruto was speechless. He'd never gotten even the slightest inkling that his musical instructor was anything more than a crotchety old man who played the shamisen well, far less that he was a powerful ninja with deadly sonic techniques. "Oh," he mumbled. An exciting thought struck him. "So... can you teach me how to use that technique?" he asked eagerly.

"Absolutely not," the old man snapped immediately. "You should know better than that, boy! I'm paid to teach you the shamisen, not ninjitsu, and my techniques are my own!"

Naruto made a face, but he couldn't really argue with that. Just because he was Koushakuji-sensei's shamisen student that didn't mean his teacher was obligated to teach him _everything_ he knew, and most ninja prized the secrets of their personal techniques. It was going to be a wrench continuing to learn shamisen playing from the old man knowing that he could be learning powerful combat ninjutsu instead, but at least he'd still have his own techniques. And frankly, the idea of carrying his shamisen into battle was a bit odd anyway.

His sensei sighed. "Now I guess I have to move again. If these poor fools sent a report back before they tried to take me then Orochimaru will be after me again. And even if they didn't, someone is going to come looking for them. Might actually send my granddaughter after me this time, or even come after me himself." He made a disgusted face. "And I liked living here too."

"B-but sensei, you can't just... leave!" Naruto protested. "Even if you won't share your ninjutsu, you still have to teach me how to play!" An idea struck him. "Maybe... would you like to come and live at the Fortr- at our new village? I'm sure we'd be glad to have you, especially if you're an enemy of Orochimaru."

"No, no, I couldn't do that," Koushakuji-sensei said. "It's nice of you to offer, boy, but I don't think I'd fit in to another hidden ninja village now. I just want to enjoy my retirement in peace. Maybe I'll travel to the Land of Waves for a while- I hear they've been doing well recently."

"But what about my lessons?!" Naruto protested plaintively. "Hinata paid for another-" He did a quick bit of mental arithmetic. "-four in advance! I can't travel to the Land of Waves and back every time!"

His tutor sighed again. "Well... for now, let me give you a refund, then." He stood up and padded across the bloodstained room to a cupboard against the wall and started rifling through it. "Look, you Leaf-nin have set up a drop box here so people can still hire you for mission requests, right?" Naruto nodded. It had been Jiraiya's idea. The remaining Leaf-nin didn't want to station any of their people outside of the Fortress full-time in case Orochimaru came looking for them to try and track them down and find the Fortress, so they'd left a sealed box where potential clients could get in touch to hire a team. "How about I come back every few months -I have another old student who lives here in town anyway and I can stay with them for a day or two- and I'll send you a message when I'm in town."

He gave Naruto a rare look of approval. "You've managed to get the hang of the basics of playing anyway. While there are still a few advanced techniques I need to teach you, all you really need now is practice. Let me give you a few more pieces you should be able to teach yourself before your next lesson." He turned back from the cupboard and rummaged through it, pulling out a couple of books of music. He tsked. "I should have made copies of these to give you in advance, I'm not going to have time now, I'll just have to loan you my originals..."

Naruto watched helplessly as his teacher came back over to him and handed him a small bag of money and a sheaf of musical scores. "So... how long is it going to be until you come back to town again?" he asked plaintively as he accepted them.

"Oh, I'll probably drop by again in two or three months," the old man said. "Well, it's time to finish up, boy. I need to get packing and you should head home." He took his usual place on the zabuton as if the room wasn't littered with debris, spattered with blood and illuminated by the burning tree in the garden. "Come on, boy, sit down!" he barked.

Bewildered, Naruto kneeled down opposite his master. This was how all their lessons officially concluded- but was Koushakuji-sensei really just going to send him home like this then just take off? Folding his hands in front of him, he bowed down to the tatami. "Uh... thank you very much, sensei."

The teacher formally returned the bow. "Well done today, boy." He straightened up again. "Sorry about the inconvenience today. Hopefully it's the last time it happens."

Naruto gave the old man a funny look as he sat up again. _'Inconvenience' he says?_ Powerful ninja that he apparently was, he couldn't help but wonder if his teacher was entirely right in the head. Holding back a sigh of frustration he began to pack up his shamisen into its bag.

"Oh, and Naruto?"

Naruto looked up at Koushakuji Tokikawa, or Otoshiki Koushino, in surprise. The old man _never_ normally used his name.

"Keep up with your practice," the old man said. "You'll be quite a good shamisen player as long as you keep working as hard at it as you have been. And if you work as hard at being a good ninja as you are as you do at the shamisen, I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot more about you in the future."

Naruto's heart swelled with pride. "Th-thanks, sensei!"

oooOOOooo

"Otoshiki Koushino?!" Jiraiya repeated in disbelief. "That old man? I thought he was dead!"

"So you _have_ heard of him then?" Naruto asked. He'd found Jiraiya drinking with Tsunade at the small sake bar that had been opened in the Fortress of the Senju a few months back by the enterprising parent of one of the former Academy students and informed him about what had happened immediately.

"Of course I know him!" Jiraiya said. "I fought beside him in the Third Shinobi War. You probably don't know this, but Oto were one of a number of minor villages allied with Konoha during the war, and he was the commander of their division back then. Greatest user of sonic techniques I'd ever seen. I thought he died even before Orochimaru took the village over."

"Nah, he said he left when Orochimaru came," Naruto informed him. "Been hiding out ever since, although he said he was probably going to go hide in the Land of Waves for now."

Jiraiya looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I shouldn't drop in and see if I can catch him before he moves on? Just to say hello, maybe ask him if he'd be interested in coming back here instead?"

Naruto shook his head. "I already asked him if he wanted to come hide out here but he said he preferred to stay on his own and he seemed to be planning to leave immediately." He sighed regretfully. "Aw man, it would have been so perfect! He comes back here where he can be safe, I can continue learning shamisen from him without having to travel for it, and he can help us finally defeat Orochimaru so he can go back home to his own village in triumph!"

"Life isn't always as perfect as it could be, boy," Jiraiya said sympathetically. "Old Otoshiki probably just wants to keep to himself and stick to his retirement. Not every old ninja can be Sarutobi-sensei and we need to respect his decision."

"Oh that's rich," Tsunade suddenly put in tiredly from Jiraiya's other side. "Where was that respect when I just wanted to enjoy my retirement, huh?"

Naruto and Jiraiya exchanged knowing glances as the woman drained another cup of sake and lapsed back into sullen silence. It was a running joke between the three of them that Tsunade would endlessly moan about her "servitude" (as she put it) whenever she had a spare opportunity to be alone with them. The unspoken agreement was that Tsunade would complain, Jiraiya, Naruto and Shizune would just smile and nod, and that would be the end of it. In all other regards Tsunade worked just as hard as any other ninja of the Fortress, so a little grizzling was a small price to pay.

Turning back to Naruto again, Jiraiya gave him a smile. "So, how did your lessons end up panning out, ninja fighting aside? You think you have your instrument mastered yet?"

The boy grinned knowingly. "Well, not quite 'mastered' just yet. Kousha-uh, Otoshiki-sensei said that I was making good progress and could mostly finish teaching myself with enough practice."

"So," Jiraiya chuckled, "you think you'll be ready to perform on Hinata's special day, then?" Naruto stared at him, annoyed. Was there anyone who _didn't_ know about his plans for his girlfriend's birthday yet?

oooOOOooo

Hinata glowed with happiness as she sat at the centre of her group of singing friends. Naruto and Sakura, her teammates Lee and Tenten, her present and former teachers Guy and Kurenai, her sister Hanabi, even Kiba had managed to attend despite his missing limbs.

"...Happy birthday dear Hinata! Happy birthday to you...!" everyone chorused and gave the girl three hearty cheers. Hinata looked like she'd faint with happiness.

"Th-thank you, everyone," she managed bashfully. "I'm so happy you could all make time to be here today."

"None of us would miss it for anything, Hinata," Kurenai assured her sincerely.

"Absolutely!" Naruto agreed enthusiastically. He grinned conspiratorially as Lee quickly snuck out of the room behind his girlfriend's back and returned almost instantly carrying a large tray. "After all, we'd miss out on _this!"_

The bowl-haired boy stepped forward and adroitly placed his burden in the middle of the table. Hinata's white eyes widened at the sight of the large round cake, lavishly iced and topped with fourteen candles. The words 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY HINATA' had been somewhat shakily spelled out on the top of the white icing in light blue sugar piping and what looked like a rather uneven kunai had been crafted next to it in licorice bits.

Naruto scowled at the sight of it, though. "Aw, Lee! You forgot to light the candles before bringing it in!" he chided the older boy crossly.

Hinata's teammate looked as mortified as if he'd just accidentally dropped a baby on its head. "Oh! I'm sorry Hinata-san, I was so excited it, it just slipped my-"

"Just leave it to me," Kurenai cut him off, smiling. Her delicate hands flickered through a lightning-fast selection of seals and she raised her fingers to her rose-red lips. _"Katon: Fire Blossom technique."_ A tiny shower of fireballs, so small they were little more than sparks, burst out, precisely striking the wicks of the fourteen candles and setting them all alight at once.

A small, impressed cheer went up from the genin at this display of precision ninjitsu. Kurenai smiled modestly and put an affectionate arm across Hinata's shoulders."Now when you're ready, blow out the candles." Hinata took a long look at the homemade birthday cake, then looked around at the smiling faces gathered around her, before taking a deep breath and extinguishing all fourteen flames. There was a small round of applause.

"Now, before we cut and serve this delightful cake that Tenten and Kurenai-san made," Guy announced, producing a large knife from nowhere as Kurenai stepped back, "I believe a few people have gifts for our dear Hinata?"

At the teacher's prompting, Naruto reached down beside his chair to fumble for the wrapped package he'd stowed there. While he was still planning on playing his shamisen for his girlfriend as a romantic gesture later on in private, he'd also bought her a novel as a more immediate gift. But Hinata's teammates beat him to it. Lee and Tenten, standing behind Hinata on either side, placed a friendly hand on each shoulder and leaned forward to place a pair of presents on the table in front of the birthday girl- one long and thin, the other short and flat. "Happy birthday, Hinata!" Tenten said warmly. "These two together are from the three of us-" She indicated Lee and the beaming Guy, "-collectively."

Curiously picking up the long present Tenten had placed before her, Hinata's slender fingers fastidiously peeled the tape back and neatly removed the wrapping paper without tearing it to reveal a small wooden box. Intrigued, she opened it- and gasped in surprise. Reaching in, she lifted the contents out- a small but finely-made wooden flute.

Tenten smiled. "Well you'd _said_ that you'd wished you could learn to play." The older girl turned to Naruto and grinned impishly. "She was too embarrassed to tell you about it, but she was really inspired by the way you just took up your instrument like that and dreamed of being able to play together with you." Hinata blushed crimson and Naruto looked at her in astonishment.

"The other present is a teach-yourself-to-play manual," Lee added, spoiling the surprise with typically guileless enthusiasm. "Sorry we couldn't find you a teacher, but it says you can learn to play in just twelve easy lessons!"

"Indeed!" Guy added profusely. "The power of youth can manifest itself in many different ways, Hinata! I hope you enjoy this art to the fullest!"

Naruto looked at his girlfriend in wonderment, a smile playing over his lips as she hugged both her teammates and thanked her teacher. She glanced across at him and this time they both blushed as their eyes met. He felt unexpectedly light-hearted. While it wasn't an idea he'd ever entertained before, with a bit of practice maybe he and Hinata would be able to make beautiful music together.

 _Wow. That sounded so cringey._

Still, outdated euphemisms aside, the idea couldn't help but make him smile.

TO BE CONTINUED...

################

AFTERWORD:

So as promised, this marks the first chapter of my gaiden fic (no, not Ninja Gaiden). When I was planning out the story of Secret Songs of the Ninja, I had ideas for a whole bunch of stories I thought I could tell, but a lot of them just felt too trivial to waste time in the main story on. When I decided to write a time skip into the story, the idea came to me to create Melody of the Shinobi to fill in the things that would happen during this time, especially as, unlike in canon, more would happen than "Naruto and Jiraiya wander around training". You have to admit, "Naruto gets a new hobby" isn't exactly the kind of thing worth basing an entire chapter of the main story around, but I hope it ended up at least entertaining enough for this side-story. I don't want people to think of this as "filler" like some of the horrible tripe that overtook the anime when it was waiting for the manga to get further ahead- everything that happens here will be fully canon with the rest of my story and sometimes even relevant. So if you're wondering why, say, Naruto might sometimes play the shamisen in his downtime in later chapters of Secret Songs, this will explain why.

So why did I decide to write about Naruto taking up the shamisen anyway? Well to be brutally blunt, the cast of Naruto are mostly a bit two-dimensional. What does canon Naruto _do_ other than be a ninja? According to the guidebooks, his only hobby (which we never actually even see) is... watering plants. At least Tsunade gambles, Jiraiya writes smutty books and Kakashi reads said smutty books in their spare time- most of the rest of the cast barely even exist beyond their lives as shinobi. Yeah, it's their job, but it shouldn't define _every_ single aspect of their being.

But why the shamisen? Well... I confess, I was projecting a bit. As my profile mentions, I play the shamisen myself, so I know a lot about it, which let me work more details into this chapter (yes, every detail is accurate, including the need to tune your instrument to a different key mid-piece and keeping a back-up instrument on hand during important performances in case one of the silk strings snaps- to be honest, it's a rather awkward instrument). Additionally, the way I came to play the shamisen was actually kind of similar to Naruto- one day I idly thought to myself "I need a hobby", then because I already liked shamisen music (that I'd heard in various Japanese games and anime including, ironically, the _Naruto_ anime itself) I decided "I know, I'll play the shamisen!" So I did- I found myself a tutor, bought an instrument, and started learning (all the song names in this chapter are real pieces I've played myself, although I made up the play Naruto took Hinata to see at the start). Besides, I knew Naruto had a fondness for kabuki from the second chapter of the manga/episode of the anime, where he tried painting himself up as a kabuki dancer for his ninja ID photo (and the Hokage told him he had to retake it). It made sense to me.

Anyway, I hope you found this entertaining and not a massive waste of time. The next chapter will jump to something -and someone- _totally_ different (Naruto won't even appear in it) but will cover something far more relevant to the post-timeskip main story than merely Naruto's hobbies...

NEXT TIME...

Crippled while fighting to save his teammate from a fate worse than death, Inuzuka Kiba has been left without purpose in life, unable to serve as a ninja any more even when he's needed more than ever. But when the possibility of him being able to walk -and fight- again arises, he will do anything. But can he entrust those he once fought against with both his crippled body and his uncertain future? Find out in Naruto: Melody of the Shinobi chapter 2, **'Melody of Rejuvenation'.**


End file.
